LOTS ON SEPTEMBER 9th!! (9th OF THE 9th GUNNERS' STUFF)

On the 9th of September 1893 Arsenal’s first defeat in the Football League Division 2: Notts County 3 Woolwich Arsenal 2. making it one draw and one defeat in the opening two matches. Billy Heath (the man who scored football’s first penalty in the league) made his Arsenal debut.  In the next game he scored Arsenal’s first ever hat trick.  

9 September 1911: First game for George Grant, who unlike most of our team in the early 20th century he was a local man, born in Plumstead in 1891.  His career incorporated Woolwich Arsenal, The Arsenal and Arsenal (same club!!), ending with the cessation of football for the First World War. In all he made 57 league appearances  and scored four goals!! He retired in 1919 and in all made 57 appearances  and scored four goals.

9 September 1916: Arsenal played Tottenham at Highbury, in front of an impressive crowd of 10,000 for a match in the wartime league.  It ended as a 1-1 draw. 

9 September 1922:  Tim Williamson dropped as goalkeeper after a series of poor performances, with Arsenal having lost all four opening games conceding 10, scoring one goal.  It was the first time Arsenal had failed to get a single point in the opening four matches.  However Arsenal’s first eight games were against last season’s top four!

9 September 1925: Newcastle United 1 Blackburn Rovers 7.  It was a game that forced Newcastle to rethink their defence in the light of the offside rule changes.  They did that and on 3 October beat Arsenal 7-0!!

9 Sept 1931: Games were overshadowed by the death of John Thomson, the Celtic goalkeeper, who died in hospital after fracturing his skull in a collision with Rangers forward Sam English in the match at Ibrox.  On this day Arsenal played Birmingham City away and still could not get their first win – the game ending in a 2-2 draw, Lambert and Hulme getting the goals.

9 Sept 1933: Arsenal were home to Manchester City, who had missed relegation by four points the previous season.  The Gunners' team included Jack Lambert for his third match in a row but the following month he was transferred to Fulham having played 143 league games for Arsenal and scored an amazing 98 league goals plus 11 in 16 Cup games.

9 Sept 1936: Arsenal played out a 1-1 draw with Brentford, making it four games and one win, and although the newspapers did not publish league tables this early in the season had they done so they would have found Arsenal sitting in 13th.  It was Jackie Milne’s first match!!

9 September 1969.  Arsenal 3 Glentoran 0.  Fairs Cup 1st round 1st leg.  The start of the journey to the first Euro trophy.  Graham got two of the goals and Gould the third, but only 24,292 turned up at Highbury.

9 September 1972: Newcastle 2 Arsenal 1 with a disappointing attendance of 23,849 perhaps fans realising how dull these teams had become – it took 20 minutes for a shot to get anywhere near the target and Arsenal played their off-side game.  Just over a year after the double it was boring boring Arsenal

9 September 1976: Pat Howard signed: Arsenal were using O’Leary and Simpson as their central defenders for the season, but with both out injured emergency cover was sought and Howard arrived from Newcastle.

9 September 1978: Arsenal lost 2-1 away to Nottm Forest after Brady had got matters going on six minutes with a 30 yard free kick to Stapleton who volleyed home.  The game also marked the third and final league appearance of Jimmy Harvey.  He moved on to Hereford in March 1980.

9 September 1981: Steve Gatting sold to Brighton and Hove Albion.  Having only played 58 league games for Arsenal he went on to play 316 times for Brighton in the league, before ending his playing career with Charlton.

9 September 1981: Norway 2 England 1 in the World Cup stunned the nation, leading Norwegian journalist Bjørge Lillelien to say, “Your boys took a hell of a beating” which became internationally famous.  Sadly Bjørge died in 1987 aged 60 from cancer.

9 September 1987:  Alexandre Dimitri Song Billong was born in Cameroon.  One of 28 children, at 16 he moved to France and signed for Bastia becoming part of the team after one season, and was selected for France Under 16s. In 2018 he moved to Swiss team Sion.

9 September 2024: Pepe confirmed by Arsenal to have left the club following the termination of his contract.

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THAT FIRST FOOTBALL LEAGUE GOAL!!

Today marks 138 years since Kenny Davenport scored the first goal in the history of the Football League, netting for Wanderers against Derby County at our old Pikes Lane home. It remains one of the proudest facts in the club's history and one that very nearly went uncredited forever. A goal that waited 125 years for its due Bolton Wanderers were one of just twelve founder members invited to form the Football League in 1888 - the world's first organised league competition of its kind and the blueprint for every league that has followed it since. On this opening day of that inaugural season,  Wanderers welcomed Derby County to Pikes Lane and with the game barely two minutes old, forward Kenny Davenport turned the ball home to open the scoring. Wanderers led that afternoon before eventually going down 6-3, with Davenport getting Wanderers' first two goals of the new league era. But for well over a hundred years, football's record books credited a different moment as the League's first-ever goal: an own goal by Aston Villa full-back Gershom Cox, scored in a match that had, in fact, kicked off later than Bolton's. It took painstaking research by football historian Mark Metcalf and librarian Robert Boyling, published in 2013, to set the record straight. By establishing the true kick-off times across all the opening day fixtures, they proved that Wanderers' clash with Derby County had started first - meaning Davenport's strike, timed at 3.47pm, was in fact the first goal ever scored in Football League history. As Metcalf himself put it, it is "definitely the most important goal in football." The achievement is now permanently marked in Bolton. In November 2016, a blue plaque was unveiled close to the old Pikes Lane site on Bankfield Street, generously hosted by the Lostock Electrical Projects Company at the invitation of Wanderers supporter and owner Duncan Simm. The unveiling was attended by PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, Mark Metcalf and the Mayor of Bolton Lynda Byrne - a fitting tribute to a piece of history that belongs to this club and this town. Kenny Davenport was born James Kenyon Davenport in Bolton, on 23 March 1862, Davenport joined Wanderers in 1883 from local side Gilnow Rangers and went on to spend a decade with the club, scoring 25 goals in 56 appearances. He won two England caps, in 1885 and 1890, and after hanging up his boots in 1893 he returned to Bolton Wanderers to coach the reserve side, staying close to the club that his goal would one day make famous. Davenport died in his hometown of Bolton on 27 September 1908, aged 46. 

The ground, Pikes Lane was Bolton Wanderers' home from 1881 until 1895, when the club moved on to Burnden Park, where Wanderers would go on to play for 102 years before the move to our current home. It was at Pikes Lane, in front of a crowd gathered for the very first day of League football, that Wanderers and Kenny Davenport made history - a reminder that long before the modern game of super-stadiums and global audiences, this club was there right at the start, helping to invent the competition that the world now watches every week. Bolton Wanderers were founder members of the Football League. Bolton Wanderers scored its first goal. In a game with a history as rich and as fiercely contested as English football's, that is a fact no one can take from this club and on the 138th anniversary of that afternoon at Pikes Lane, it's one every Wanderer can be proud of !!

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ON THE SEVENTH

This day, on the 7th September 1960, the newly "promoted" Peterborough United played their sixth match in the Football League, Division 4, against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park with a huge 36,478 attending. The Posh won 2-0. Five days later, the return League match at London Road was played in front of a 21,171 crowd. Nearly 60,000 watching a new Football League side play two Division 4 matches in a week - that will surely never happen again! (Posh won both matches).

12 Sep 1960

Peterborough United v Crystal Palace

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4-1

League Division Four

Peterborough United formed in 1934 and joined the Midland League. Having won the Midland League title for five consecutive seasons from 1955–56, they were elected into the Football League in 1960. Peterborough immediately won the Fourth Division title in 1960–61, scoring a Football League record of 134 goals. Relegated in 1968, they won another Fourth Division title in 1973–74, though suffered a further relegation in 1979. Peterborough were promoted back into the Third Division at the end of the 1990–91 season and reached the second tier with victory in the 1992 Play Off Final. However they returned to the fourth tier with relegations in 1994 and 1997.

Peterborough won the Third Division play-offs in 2000 under the stewardship of legendary Barry Fry, though were relegated in 2005. They secured a place in the Championship after manager Darren Furgesson led them to consecutive promotions in 2007–08 and 2008–09 and spent three of the next four seasons in the second tier, winning a play-off final in 2011 after relegation the previous year. They were relegated back into League One in 2013, though went on to win the Football League Trophy in 2014. In the 2020-1 season, Peterborough were promoted back to the Championship, though were relegated back into League One the following season.

Peterborough United are nicknamed "The Posh", a moniker coined in 1921, after Pat Tirrell, manager of Fletton United, was reported to say he was "Looking for posh players for a posh new team". When Fletton United looked to join the Southern League in 1923 they added Peterborough to their name to form Peterborough & Fletton United, in an attempt to gain the backing of businesses in Peterborough. Peterborough & Fletton United went bankrupt in October 1932 so the current club is the third to be known as The Posh. However, the term "posh" was used as a derogatory term for the club by the press.

Peterborough & Fletton United were also commonly called "the brickies" in reference to the large brick industry in Peterborough, however the nickname was dropped when the club went bankrupt.

In 2002 Victoria Beckham filed a counter-claim with the UK Patent Office over the club's application to register their nickname of "Posh" for use on merchandise. The former Spice Girl, who was known in the group as "Posh Spice", claimed the "nickname 'Posh' has become synonymous with her on a worldwide basis". She was unsuccessful in her suit.^[

7th September 1977
Ron Greenwood selected six players from European Champions Liverpool, plus Kevin Keegan, who had recently left Anfield for Hamburg, for his first match as manager of England. But England lacked cohesion and imagination in a disappointing 0-0 draw in the friendly against Switzerland at Wembley. Liverpool's Ian Callaghan made this third appearance for England in that match - his previous match for England had been 11 years earlier in 1966!

7th September 2002
Scotland pulled back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with the mighty Faroe Islands in a Euro qualifier – always worth remembering if there are any Scots you talk to about football!

The FSF (Fotboltssamband Foroya)............

gained FIFA membership on 2 July 1988 and the team's first official victory was a 1–0 win in a friendly match against Canada the next year. The next year, the FSF joined the UEFA on 18 April 1990.

Today the national team plays Poland in Warsaw, in the UEFA qualifying group. next up is at home to Moldova at home in Torshavn.

QUITE A LONG BLOG...SORRY ITS ABOUT RED CARDS!

If you found the "complex" version yesterday, here's the proper edition!! Apologies...

SEPTEMBER 5th 2020 Definitely a RED CARD for me....

Kyle Walker said he takes "full blame" after being sent off in the England game and hoped it did not mark the end of his international career!!

The Manchester City full-back, 30, returned to the side that day, having missed the previous six internationals. He received a second yellow card in the win against Iceland for a lunging tackle. Walker said he will talk to boss Gareth Southgate about his England future.

Southgate said the red card put his team "in a really difficult situation". Already on a yellow card and with the ball running loose, Walker recklessly jumped in on Arnor Traustason to become only the 14th player to be sent off for England.

Walker became banned for the next game against Denmark in Copenhagen and faced a tough task to get back into the side as he competed for a right-back spot with Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold and Atletico Madrid's Kieran Trippier. City team-mate Raheem Sterling earned England a late win in their opening Nations League game with a 90th minute winner from the penalty spot!!

Image source,Getty Images

Image caption,

Walker was only the 14th player to be sent off for England.

A distraught-looking Walker told Sky Sports: "To get sent off for your country is never a nice moment especially after being out of the team for so long and being on 49 caps. I have to take the full blame. To make a rash challenge like that is not acceptable. I don't blame the pressure, I am a seasoned professional and I should know how to manage a game. You have to say fair play to the lads for digging in and fighting and getting the win. Hopefully I will be back. I have to talk to the boss and see what he wants to do. I am more than happy to say I want to be around the team. I have missed it." 

Southgate in no mood for niceties Walker was the first player sent off in Southgate's four-year reign, with Sterling the previous red card for the Three Lions in a friendly against Ecuador in 2014. 

England were fortunate to escape with all three points after defender Joe Gomez conceded an injury-time penalty, which Birkir Bjarnason blazed wide.  Southgate was clearly unhappy with Walker, saying after the game: "We all have to learn from that incident in the game because we have gone out of tournament before when we have been down to 10 men. "That is not the situation I have had in the time I have been in charge so the response to it from the rest of the team was good. It put us in a really difficult situation. I liked the character to respond to the setbacks that we had. The obvious lessons are the red card, you can't make challenges like that. Kyle has spoken about it and held his hands up in the dressing room but being down to 10 men makes life so difficult to win matches. To win with 10 was commendable for the attitude of the players and coping with a that situation."

BBC Sport chief football writer Phil McNulty said: Walker was a surprise selection by England manager Gareth Southgate for the Nations League games with Iceland and Denmark when it looked like his international career was behind him.

Southgate reinforced his renewed faith in the Manchester City defender by handing him a starting place in Iceland - his reward was an unwise challenge and second yellow card that must ask old questions about Walker's international career. Walker's second challenge on Traustason was reckless in the extreme with 20 minutes left and England struggling to break down a typically stubborn Iceland. Southgate was clearly unimpressed.

Walker will know he has blotted his copybook when he could least afford it, with Trippier still a trusted member of Southgate's squad - selflessly working on the left side in Iceland - while Liverpool's Alexander-Arnold is edging back towards full fitness and is widely regarded as one of the best young right-backs in world football. Manchester United's Aaron Wan-Bissaka provides further competition so Walker will have know he needed to be more or less faultless to take advantage of an unlikely chance to rekindle his England career. He wore the look of a man who may have damaged that opportunity and must hope Southgate is in a benevolent mood otherwise his sending off could prove very expensive when measured against his England future.

Chris Waddle on Radio 5 Analysis says: Overall you have to say England, with the possession they had, did not create enough and they did not move the ball quick enough. They were not positive enough. It's a good three points for England. They look a bit rusty and hopefully they will improve on that performance on Sunday. England fell short in terms of breaking Iceland down. Iceland will probably think they deserved a draw and England have to improve. It just wasn't good enough tonight.

Last night Kyle Walker, earning his 49th cap, joined the illustrious list of England's International footballers who have been sent off when playing for England. It was Southgate's first dismissal under his control. The Manchester City right back (at the time) was shown a yellow cardin the first half for an untimely tackle and then reeived a second card towards the end of the game after a flying tackle on Arnor Traustason. The dismissal has made England's job even harder as they struggled to break down a stubborn Iceland side, with the score at 0-0. It was Walker's first game for the Three Lions for over a year, with his last appearance coming in the Nations third place play-off victory against Switzerland on June 9 2019.

Walker had been absent from all of Gareth Southgate's squads until the current international break as the England manager desired to try other players in the position, namely Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold. The red card will come as a blow to the 29-year-old's hopes of winning his 50th England cap, as he will be suspended for Tuesday's match against Denmark. England's blushes were spared right on 90 minutes as Walker's City teammate Raheem Sterling scored from the penalty spot to finally break down the home side's defensive wall. But Iceland should have equalised almost immediately afterwards, firing their own spot-kick over the bar. Gareth Southgate selected Phil Foden in his starting 11, playing in a three-man midfield alongside Southampton's James Ward-Prowse and West Ham's Declan Rice. 

Since the first international in any country, this in England in 1872, there had been no record of an English player taking a walk until Alan Mullery was dismissed on June 5th 1968 playing against Yugoslavia in a European Championship Finals tie in the 90th minute in Firenze, Italy!! Opposition players and especially, Trivic spent the whole game kicking English players with no reprimand from the ref. When he raked Mullery's legs from behind, Alan (a serious Christian, I have to add), kicked him in the "how's your fathers". Should have left it to the tunnel. England lost 0-1 in their 424th match-the semi-final! Alf Ramsey paid Mullery's fine of £50 presented by the FA!!  

he next England player sent off was also in June:  6/6/73: Alan Ball v Poland lost 0-2 World Cup Quals. 76th minute in Chorzow 12/6/77 Trevor Cherry v Argentina 1-1 Friendly, 83rd minute in La Bombonera 6/6/86 Ray Wilkins v Morocco 0-0 World Cup Finals, 43rd minute in Monterrey 30/6/98 David Beckham v Argentina (that viscious kick) 2-2 (lost on pens) WCF, 47th St-Etienne 5/9/98 Paul Ince v Sweden 1-2 European CQuals 67th minute, Stockholm 3/6/99 Paul Scholes v Sweden 0-0 European CQ 51th minute, Wembley 8/9/99 David Batty v Poland 0-0 European CQ 84th minute. Warsaw  16/10/02 Alan Smith v Macedonia 2-2 European Cp 90+2 minute. Southampton 8/10/05 David Beckham (2nd time) v Austria 1-0 World Cup Qual 59th minute Old Trafford 1/7/06 Wayne Rooney v Portugal 3-1 LOST on pens World Cup Finals 62nd minute. Gelsenkirchen 10/10/09 Robert Green v Ukraine 0-1 World Cup P 13th minute. Dnipro Arena 7/10/11 Wayne Rooney (2nd time) v Montenegro 2-2 European CQ 73rd minute. Podgorica 11/9/12 Steven Gerrard v Ukraine 1-1 World Cup Qual 88th minute. Wembley 4/6/14 Rahim Sterling v Ecudaor 2-2 Friendly 79th minute. Sunlife Stadium Miami. 

I have known a famous football club's officials, so distressed by the embarrassment of having a player sent off (I believe the first ever in history) that a full club committee greeted the dismissed player as he left the field, with his home clothes in a bundle and didn't let him return to the changing room. He was banished!! You won't guess the club....... Well you might?............yep, the true amateurs.....The Corinthian Casuals!

GAZZA AND GROSS

Paul Gascoigne could have joined either Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur when he left Newcastle United, but it was Terry Venables who lured Gazza to White Hart Lane, with the promise that Gazza would get into the England team if he joined the Spurs. El Tel was right and on this day (September 5th) in 1988, Bobby Robson gave Gazza his first call up to the Senior team! Gazza made his debut at Wembley on this day in a 1-0 victory over Denmark, a few days later.

Paul Gascoigne burst on to the international scene exactly 27 years ago and went on to become an England legend. Having made a name for himself at hometown club Newcastle United, and scooping the PFA Young Player of the Year for an impressive 1987-88 season for the Magpies, he moved to Tottenham Hotspur for a British record transfer fee of £2.2m. Within two months he had received his first call-up from Three Lions boss Bobby Robson, and on 14 September 1988 the 21-year-old made his England debut in a Wembley friendly against Denmark.

Gazza and El Tel had long gone when Christian Gross had arrived in London, waving his underground ticket, claiming it was the ticket to his dreams. As manager of Spurs between November 1997 and September 1998, Gross became the first Swiss to manage in the Premier League.

His Managerial career
1988–1993	Wil
1993–1997	Grasshopper
1997–1998	Tottenham Hotspur
1999–2009	Basel
2009–2010	VfB Stuttgart
2011–2012	Young Boys
2014–2017	Al-Ahli
2018–2019	Zamalek
2019–2020	Al-Ahli
2020–2021	Schalke 04
2024–2025	Zamalek

Bit more like a nightmare actually though, as he flirted with relegation and it meant he lasted less than a season before on this day in 1998, Alan Sugar, flanked by sidekicks Nick and Margaret (know who they are?) called Gross to his boardroom and pointed his fateful finger at the uinfortanue Swiss and growled "You're fired!" Ooops!

September 4 in football history

In 1867, on this date, Sheffield Wednesday was founded, one of England’s oldest clubs, Sheffield Wednesday, was officially established. They went on to win 4 league titles and 3 FA Cups.

1899 – White Hart Lane Opens Tottenham Hotspur played their first-ever game at White Hart Lane, a ground that later became one of English football’s iconic stadiums.

Match Details

Date: September 4, 1899
Teams: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Notts County (then a Division One club)
Result: Tottenham Hotspur won 4–1
Attendance: Around 5,000 spectators
Gate receipts: £115 

First Competitive Match

Date: September 9, 1899 (five days after the opener)
Teams: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Queens Park Rangers
Result: Tottenham Hotspur won 1–0 

In 1960 – Real Madrid thrashed Peñarol (5–1) in the first-ever Intercontinental Cup. They beat Uruguay’s Peñarol in front of nearly 100,000 fans at the Santiago Bernabéu.

Jimmy Dunne (1905) – Northern Irish striker, famous for his goal-scoring in the 1930s. Marc Degryse (1965) – Belgian international with 23 goals in 63 caps. Maik Taylor (1971) – Northern Ireland goalkeeper. Tomáš Hübschman (1981) – Czech Republic defender. Raúl Albiol (1985) – Spanish centre-back, World Cup & Euro winner.

2006 – Giacinto Facchetti died.

The Inter Milan and Italy icon, famed for redefining the attacking full-back role, died at 64. He won Euro 1968 and was runner-up in the 1970 World Cup.